But I did not want to give the impression
that I derive the breakdown tendency from Bauer’s
scheme. Indeed, I emphasized in the book that Bauer’s scheme is
unrealistic. That position is a direct
implication of my methodological piece on the ‘Plan for Capital’;
Bauer makes unrealistic, false assumptions and I just wanted to pursue
his argument ad absurdam. Someone ironically said
against me that in my book capitalism breaks
down not as a result of the suffering of the workers but the suffering
of the
capitalists. This objection does not touch me but Bauer. That is a
result of his scheme, as he assumes
that capitalism at
best accumulates at a rate of 10% a year and that workers, at
best, receive
a [total] wage that grows by 5% a year. In reality these assumptions do
not
apply. There are precisely struggles between workers and capitalists
over the
distribution of surplus value. It is insufficient for both
an adequate level of wages and
the required rate of accumulation. One can only be achieved at the
expense of
the other. Hence the intensification of class struggles. The
development of the
situation in the United States, England and Germany over the past two
years
confirms this diagnosis 100 per cent. I do not maintain that surplus
value
declines. It can grow. And nevertheless it is insufficient because
accumulation
(as it requires an ever greater organic composition) swallows a
continuously larger part of the
surplus value.

[If capitalists
secure their income, then wages are insufficient and] an objectively
revolutionary situation
arises: the system shows that it cannot secure the living conditions of
the
population. From this objective
situation and through it the class
struggle intensifies. That is, the subjective
factor, whether the working
class through its struggles is capable of overturning the system, only
becomes
significant with the objective situation in this phase of development.
Obviously the idea that capitalism must break down ‘of
itself’ or
‘automatically’, which Hilferding and other
socialists (Braunthal) assert
against my book, is far from being my position. It can only be
overturned
through the struggles of the working class.

But I
wanted to show that the class struggle alone is not
sufficient. The will
to overturn capitalism is not enough. Such a will cannot even arise in
the earlyphases
of capitalism. It would also be [in]effective without
a revolutionary situation.[1] Only in the final
phases of development do the
objective conditions
arise which bring about the preconditions
for the successful, victorious
intervention of the working class. Obviously, as a dialectical
Marxist, I understand that both sides of the process,
the objective and subjective elements influence each other reciprocally.
In the class struggle these
factors fuse. One cannot
‘wait’ until
the ‘objective’
conditions are there and only then
allow the ‘subjective’ factors to come into play.
That would be an inadequate,
mechanical view, which is alien to me. But, for
the purposes of the analysis, I had to use the process of
abstract
isolation of individual elements in order to show the essential
function of
each element. Lenin often talks of the revolutionary situation which
has to be
objectively given, as the precondition for the active, victorious
intervention
of the proletariat. The purpose of my breakdown theory was not to
exclude this
active intervention, but rather to show when and under what
circumstances such
an objectively given revolutionary situation can and does arise.

Bauer’s scheme is insufficient on
many grounds…
I wanted to demonstrate that the result of even this, his mistaken
scheme is
breakdown and not equilibrium. I do not
want, however, to identify myself with Bauer’s scheme under
any circumstances

1. From
the sense of this paragraph (and consistency with his argument
elsewhere), Grossman seems
to have left out a negative particle from this sentence. [RK]